The eo v7110 and its’ battery problems

We all applauded TabletKiosk for holding back the initial shipments due to some issues brought up by quality testing. The consenus around the community was overwhelmingly positive – get it right and then ship. However, I feel the necessity to call out TabletKiosk, and in particular Amtek, for allowing the v7110 to ship with this battery issue and apparently no power management features implemented.

As most of you know, when I tested the eo prototype, I experienced very similar battery issues (slightly better as a matter of fact – 1 hour 40 minutes ) and it required the eo to be plugged in almost constantly. Martin Smekal, TabletKiosks CEO, made a comment on my initial review that power management hadn’t been implemented on the prototype and that there would be some bios issues for the production units. This was a known issue before shipping, and as far as I can tell, it was only communicated through my blog. Customers should have known to only expect 1 hour 25 minutes until such a bios fix could be released and give the date of that release. Full disclosure.

Well, it turns out the production units don’t have power management features implemented either and that BIOS fix is the type of fix that should have kept the eo V7110 from shipping in the first place. Kudos to CTitanic who has dutifully blogged this whole thing and to the community at OrigamiPortal.com

Amtek – the OEM of the eo V7110, needs to get this addressed ASAP. The reputation of these UMPCs, and the concept in general, is at stake and it wouldn’t surprise me to see the UMPC ridiculed as a result . I wouldn’t be surprised for something to start appearing on Engadget soon. People are watching the initial experiences of these users very closely.

From an experience standpoint, in my opinion, the eo has the Q1 beat – left / right mouse buttons, track point, 120 gram digitizer, and much better pricing. However, folks are going to be flocking to the Q1 if this doesn’t get addressed quickly. Initial perception is huge.

Bottomline for me: the V7110 should not have shipped with these issues. We all expect early glitches from 1st gen machines. I bought the TC1000 and can tell you all about 1st gen experiences. Nobody expects a perfect experience right out of the gate, but don’t cripple yourself on what makes these devices attractive in the first place – mobility. These devices have been marketed as “take anywhere, anytime” computers. You can’t do that with 1 hour 25 minute battery life. At a minimum, power management should have been implemented to at least help with the BIOS problem until it got addressed properly. As I look on www.TabletKiosk.com, I don’t see any communication from them regarding this issue, the status, what customers should be doing, when to expect resolution, etc. I have not received any communications from Gaily Levy, TabletKiosks Director of PR, about this issue. At this point in the game, we should already have gotten some type of mass communication.